Torres: An Intimate Portrait of the Kid Who Became King

Madrid, the city’s ‘first’ team? It was all down to Eulalio Sanz, Fernando’s maternal grandfather.
    By way of a short preamble, the Torres family was not very football-oriented. It was not one of those Spanish families glued to the radio listening to live match commentaries, nor was it one of those where, when there was a big match, all the relatives and friends joined together to experience the event on television. The passion for football and particular clubs in the Torres household was pretty lukewarm. There was certainly a fondness for Deportivo La Coruña because of the father’s family origins. But nothing special. The real fan was his grandfather. A lifelong
rojiblanco
(supporter of Atlético Madrid).
    In the sitting room of Elulalio and Paz in Valdeavero, there was an impressive-looking ceramic plate with the Atlético badge. It was an object that fascinated Fernando. He could remember it from when he was two or three years old. At that time he knew nothing about football matches or clubs, but his grandfather – thanks to that plate – began his ‘sentimental education’. Each time the small Torres went to look at it, he repeated to him: ‘When you’re grown-up, you must be with Atlético.’ And with the passing of the years, he began to explain the club’s ideals and values. He began to explain that Real Madrid was everyone’s team, the one that always won, while Atléti was the other side of the coin, where defeats had to be suffered and where being a fan required real effort.
    The seed of support took hold and grew. When he was nine, Fernando’s father took him to the Vicente Calderón museum, where they keep the trophies, cups, old photographs, footballs, badges and pennants – a trip that left the youngster in awe. Some years later it will be Manolo Briñas who explains to Fernando, one-to-one, the symbols and the 106-year-old history of a club founded in April 1903, which boasts nine league titles, and which, historically, comes to be considered Spain’s third-best team in terms of trophies and supporters, behind Real Madrid and Barcelona. So when Fernando qualifies to join Atlético, he’s hardly got home and in through the door before he’s on the phone to his grandfather to tell him the great news. A grandfather who will have the greatest satisfaction, before his death on 23 February 2003, to see Fernando in the shirt of his beloved team, playing in the Vicente Calderón.
    But going back to the summer of 1995 and to the first impressions of Briñas, the person who began to train him:
    ‘Fernando was an open, amusing, happy and very responsible lad who gave everything. He wasn’t the typical joker who took his attitude into the matches. He already had his head well screwed-on. And all that was due to his parents, who told him, “enjoy yourself at football but study”. And he followed that to the letter. I remember once, when I went to meet him at Atocha station, he was coming back from winning a tournament. He got off the train, he had a copy of
Marca
in his hand, where it was talking about him. I thought that he would want to show it to me but no – under the newspaper he had his end-of-term reports. He proudly showed them to me, “Look Manolo, I’ve passed in all subjects. And I’ve got quite a few top grades.” Yes, very often parents think they have a Maradona, they think their son can score the second goal before the first but life isn’t like that. To get there, you have to make sacrifices, not leave school and move forward bit-by-bit.’
    And to explain how Torres was, he remembers the away match in Belgium: ‘At dinner, in the hotel, they served a vegetable soup and lots of the lads put their plates to one side without touching it, saying they found it nauseating, so much so that Rangel shouted ‘You don’t play if you haven’t eaten everything.’ It wasn’t necessary to say it to Fernando. He ate anything.’
    Bierbeek – the first away match, the first foreign trip, the hotel, the team-mates, the first team base, the first international tournament. A lot of excitement for Fernando in those days of August 1995. Around 30 different teams are taking part in the tournament, including Ajax, Anderlecht, Werder Bremen and Bayern Munich – clubs that boast a long tradition of bringing through new talent. Atlético, on the other hand, has only just set up its junior teams. Manolo Rangel is worried about making a bad impression because his lads don’t know